Mark's Lecture on Core Fears

Every Tuesday night, Mark, (who is a doctor of psychology, lectures to his clients. It is a self-mastery course, 16 different topics in all. For years he taught these lectures to the inmates at the jails, I am not sure just how long he has been giving them but it's been more than 10 years now. The topic last night was the first of two parts on core fears. I promised some of our friends to share notes on the class. I hope to give at least an idea of how interesting and useful this knowledge is for each of us. Each of us has core fears, we need to spend some time in meditation and self-analysis to determine what our core fear is. We need to be a hero in our own lives and face the fears within us, being vulnerable and willing to admit when we are wrong. We need to take this battle seriously. What is at stake? Our personal happiness in this life, how much happiness we can gain in the eternities, and our society needs all of us to get some discipline on this issue!!

One of the oldest stories told is about the hero that seeks the treasure. He must conquer some type of advesary, deep within a mysterious cave and claim the gold as his own. The gold we seek is happiness, peace, wisdom, confidence and comfort, and each of us must go deep within the cave, kill the monster and claim our treasure. If we open the door to ourselves wide; our hearts, our minds, and drinking in our five senses, we can fill our soul. Because we are bombarded with stimulation in our everyday lives, our fears close the valves of awareness including soothing and comforting things. Fears cause us to be close-minded, frustrated, avoid people, and hide from God and spirituality. The consequences of hiding are losing relationships, spirituality, health and freedom. It will rob us from our joy! Most of our fears are then exposed and triggered by anxiety. We seek to avoid the anxiety and discomfort so we move away from the fear (ie; the lion is on your right so you move to your left). We are also motivated to move toward comfort, which also encourages us to avoid our fear. Well, what about this? The main point of life is NOT to avoid all pain and discomfort! Society tells us, "Nobody should suffer", we should throw money, medication and services at anyone or anything that experiences any type of suffering. Avoiding our core fears will actually cause them to happen. This is due to several theories. One theory is the Law of Attraction. Energy will follow what you focus your mind on. If you are worried and anxious over an issue, you will draw similar energy into your path and we will manifest proof of our beliefs. Another theory is Mark's own theory called the Pendulum Theory. When you are afraid of one side you run to the other side. Our own defensive behaviors can actually cause the fear reaction. In Polarization Theory when we behave in an extreme behavior we can cause those around us to act out our defense. Example; A core fear of abandonment might cause someone to be very needy and clingy to thier partner, over time that person feels smoothered and needs more space and in some ways abandons the one with that fear. Alright, are you still reading this? You are invested in growth then, cool beans! Your core fear is a ticking time bomb, make no mistake it WILL go off if you don't diffuse it. How do you diffuse your core fear? First, Know what you are fighting...know your enemy, WHAT IS YOUR CORE FEAR? After 1000s of patients to practice on, Mark came up with the 10 most common core fears, the fears that we must do battle with continually, but it's a battle we can win. 1. Abandonment 2. Failure 3. Rejection/Criticism 4. Guilt 5. No control 6. Ambiguity/the unknown 7. Feeling unsafe or vulnerable 8. Unfairness 9. Lack of resources 10. Death. Which one is the one you need to focus on? Meditate on each of the fears and rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 how much it bothers or upsets you. We all have some fears about these issues but you should see one or two of these as the highest rated. Another way to find someone's core fear is to observe your behaviors. We often run away from our fears, so whatever personality trait stands out about us we are likely afraid of the opposite. Example; someone who does extreme sports is likely afraid of death wanting to milk all they can out of each moment in life. The second way to diffuse the ticking time bomb is to stay moderate. Stay in the middle ground being willing to accept that all these fears are a part of life. They are like the yucky vegetables we have to eat when we're a kid. Just eat the vegetables! Next week Mark will go into how to fight the noble battle against our core fears. We have three choices when up against fears; fight, flight, (these two choices will cause the fear to play out), or accept the fear. Anyone that attended class please elaborate from your notes, or share your insights!